Take Your Vitamin D3 (And Take MORE of It!)

I think that many people believe that something as seemingly innocuous as taking certain vitamins in order to fight one's cancer is naive and/or kinda like trying to kill an elephant with a pea shooter. But the diet of an average American SUCKS, and does our mainstream medical world focus on the importance of good nutrition to help us stay healthy and strong, with bodies equipped to fight disease? No. They focus on pills. Drugs. Treatments for symptoms rather than for causes.

Maybe cancer wouldn't be AS awful and rampant as it is, if we better understood how to help our bodies work optimally. If our bodies worked optimally, maybe we'd be able to NATURALLY fight off cancer cells before they were able to multiply enough to become tumors.  We ALL have cancer cells in our bodies. And our bodies DO know how to kill them off. It's just that our bodies can't do this if they don't have the right foods and exercise (and if they are constantly subjected to overloads of mental, emotional and spiritual stress, in addition to physical stress).

Anyway, I'm not saying that if everyone ate perfectly (assuming anyone could ever agree on the definition of a perfect diet), no one would get cancer. I'm just saying that we might have LESS cancer in our society if we ate better, and if our doctors and researchers paid more attention to "simple" (not really) and relatively inexpensive supplements like Vitamin D and iodine, rather than focusing so intensely on barbarian (and expensive) treatments such as chemo and radiation and hormone blockers (castration causers) such as Tamoxifan and Arimidex.

This short article explains why I take 4,000 IU (not 400) of Vitamin D3 every day:

    1: Curr  Med Res Opin. 2007 Nov 21; [Epub ahead of print]
    Molecular basis of the   potential of vitamin D to prevent
    cancer. Ingraham BA, Bragdon B, Nohe   A.

    OBJECTIVE:
    To review current research findings in cell biology,
    epidemiology, preclinical, and clinical trials on the protective
    effects of vitamin D against the development of cancers of the breast,
    colon, prostate, lung, and ovary. Current recommendations for optimal
    vitamin D status, the movement towards revision of standards, and
    reflections on healthy exposure to sunlight are also reviewed.Search
    methodology: A literature search was conducted in April and updated in
    September 2007. The Medline and Web of Knowledge databases were
    searched for primary and review articles published between 1970 and
    2007, using the search terms vitamin D, calcitriol, cancer,
    chemoprevention, nuclear receptor, vitamin D receptor, apoptosis, cell
    cycle, epidemiology, and cell adhesion molecule. Articles that   focused
    on epidemiological, preclinical, and clinical evidence for vitamin   Ds
    effects were selected and additional articles were obtained   from
    reference lists of the retrieved articles.

    FINDINGS:
    An increasing body of research supports the hypothesis that
    the active form of vitamin D has significant, protective effects against
    the development of cancer. Epidemiological studies show an inverse association between sun
    exposure, serum levels of 25(OH)D, and intakes of vitamin D and risk   of
    developing and/or surviving cancer. The protective effects of vitamin   D
    result from its role as a nuclear transcription factor that regulates
    cell growth, differentiation, apoptosis and a wide range of cellular
    mechanisms central to the development of cancer. A significant number
    of individuals have serum vitamin D levels lower than what appears to
    protect against cancer, and the research community is currently
    revising the guidelines for optimal health. This will lead to improved
    public health policies and to reduced risk of cancer.

    CONCLUSIONS:
    Research strongly supports the view that efforts to improve vitamin D
    status would have significant protective effects against the
    development of cancer. The clinical research community is currently
    revising recommendations for optimal serum levels and for sensible
    levels of sun exposure, to levels greater than previously thought.
    Currently, most experts in the field believe that intakes of between
    1000 and 4000 IU will lead to a more healthy level of serum 25(OH)D, in
    the range of 75 nmol/L that will offer significant protect effects
    against cancers of the breast, colon, prostate, ovary, lungs, and
    pancreas. The first randomized trial has shown significant protection
    against breast cancer, and other clinical trials will follow and
    ultimately lead to improved public health policies   and significantly
    fewer cancers.

    PMID: 18034918 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Comments

[Jill]

Interesting....(I was just put on 1000 IU vit D for treatment for inflammation associated with joint pain.)...Vit D benefits seem to be underappreciated...